Heroism would not be necessary if the NHS was not critically underfunded

Send your letters to letters@independent.co.uk

Watching Ross Kemp’s new ITV documentary, in which he follows frontline NHS staff in Milton Keynes hospital made me emotional. I have lived in Milton Keynes for 17 years, and am no stranger to the intensive care unit – my father has been in and out of hospital the past seven years receiving cancer treatment.

It also made me angry. Angry at the fact that our current crisis is constantly “narrated” to us through that familiar lens of apathy masquerading as patriotism. War, sacrifice and heroism are the themes of the day – NHS staff are fighting the enemy, they are sacrificing their wellbeing and sometimes their lives, they are heroic.

I take issue with this notion of heroism. NHS staff are heroes – but constantly framing them as such dismisses their very real, very human concerns. It places an unrealistic expectation on them to continue their outstanding level of care while they are faced with severe PPE shortages, shifts lasting upwards of 16 hours a day, and the immense grief of seeing patients of all ages dying without loved ones by their side.

At one point in the documentary, when Kemp speaks to nursing director Nicky Burns-Muir, she says she doesn’t think people actually see themselves as heroes at all. After Kemp quickly interjects with “but we see you as heroes”, she insists we are all human beings at the end of the day.

Why don’t we listen to that? Why do we find it so hard to recognise the humanity of NHS staff over and above their heroism? Why can’t we acknowledge that the future of a nation should not depend (as it currently does) predominantly on their sacrifices?

Heroism would not be necessary if the NHS was not critically underfunded. Heroism is a cover-up for a national scandal. Heroism is the wool that is being pulled over our eyes. And it’s high time we all woke up.

Sofia Brown
Milton Keynes

A matter of trust

In the light of reports that people were, in general, supporting the lockdown, I couldn’t understand why ministers are loath to be honest about the exit strategy.

But then I realised that at least three ministers – Nadine Dorries, Matt Hancock and Boris Johnson – succumbed to Covid-19. It’s clear that if ministers can’t even trust their own colleagues to abide by their own instructions they must treat citizens as children.

It can’t possibly be that they fear that with only 45 per cent of the general election vote they realise they don’t have a mandate to govern either.

Hugh Woodhouse
Brighton

Brexit blindness

This government should be crucified for its stupid, narrow, blinkered Brexit-driven decision that stopped the UK cooperating with the EU to procure the very equipment we are now running out of. Meanwhile, doctors and nurses in 25 EU countries will be sharing in £1.3bn of PPE within the next two weeks while the UK scrabbles about trying to make do and mend. This government’s Brexit dogma may now cost lives of NHS staff.

Arthur Streatfield
Bath

Low expectations

The Labour Party spent the Thatcher years fighting itself, rather than fighting what was, arguably, a government hell bent on promoting inequality, and the Cameron years doing the same while the government promoted an ideologically driven austerity that damaged the poorest in our society. Will history repeat itself in the Johnson years or, by some miracle, will Labour MPs put their egos to one side and do the job they are paid to do? I hope Keir Starmer succeeds, but my expectations are not high.

Joanna Pallister
Durham

Time to grow up Britain

Alok Sharma has announced a vaccine taskforce comprising top (that’s good) scientists and manufacturers who will work together to speed up the development of a coronavirus vaccine (that’s really good).

He also announced that the taskforce will help position the UK as a leader in clinical vaccine testing and manufacturing. What? Why? In these terrible times, is our government still so childishly focused on being a world leader rather than on international collaboration, on achieving something good that benefits all of us? No – for some weird reason they continue to think we have to be a world leader. When will they grow up?

Beryl Wall
London

A president there’s no excuse for

Against all professional advice, President Trump encourages individual states to ignore a pandemic and reopen for business as usual.

It’s an election year. He has nothing going for him except the economy. He is well aware of this, and that is all he cares about.

It has surely come to something when an American president is prepared to roll the dice with tens of thousands of American lives to reignite the only agenda that can possibly keep him afloat. Here is a man there’s no excuse for. He deserves to lose in 2020. And I hope he does.

Mike Galvin
Winchcombe